Oral history interview of Aristide LaPorta

Collection:: Veterans History Project: Oral History Interviews
Title:: Oral history interview of Aristide LaPorta
Creator:: Wallace, Fredrick C.
LaPorta, Aristide, 1917-
Date of Original:: 2004-05-06
Subject:: World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American
World War, 1939-1945--Africa
Sherman tank
M3 light tank
Kasserine Pass, Battle of, Tunisia, 1943
World War, 1939-1945--Prisoners and prisons, American
Spinelli, Angelo M., 1917-2004
United States. Army. Armored Division, 1st
Location:: Algeria, Oran, 35.69906, -0.63588
Italy, 42.833333, 12.833333
Italy, Reggio di Calabria, 38.1035389, 15.6397556
United States, California, Los Angeles County, Fort McArthur Lower Reservation (historical), 33.72111, -118.285
United States, Georgia, 32.75042, -83.50018
United States, Georgia, Atlanta Metropolitan Area, 33.8498, 84.4383
United States, Kentucky, Hardin County, Fort Knox, 37.89113, -85.96363
United States, New York, Monroe County, Rochester, 43.15478, -77.61556
Medium:: video recordings (physical artifacts)
hi-8
Type:: Moving Image
Format:: video/quicktime
Description:: In this interview, Ed LaPorta describes his service in the U.S. Army in Africa and Europe during World War II. He was born and received most of his education in Italy, emigrating in 1932. He loved the idea of the American west and moved to California, where he worked "lots of jobs" including driving a truck so he could travel. When he saw the Uncle Sam posters in banks and post offices, he felt as though they were pointing to him. He recognized that the nation needed to build an army because of the problems in Europe. He enlisted and when they found out he was a mechanic and trucker he was placed in the motor pool. He drove every vehicle in the Army from motorcycles to heavy tanks and did so well he was made an instructor for a time. With his unit, he completed maneuvers in Louisiana and the Carolinas. At the end of training, they were in their dress uniforms waiting for their furloughs and listening to the radio when Orson Welles announced Pearl Harbor had been attacked. They felt it was one of Welles' acts and changed the station, where they heard the same announcement. Furloughs were canceled and he was particularly disappointed as he had planned to visit his parents before he went overseas. He landed in Belfast (Ireland) and was briefly stationed there and tells the story of shooting a cow in the bushes one night because they had been warned the Germans may be landing paratroopers there. He spent a month in England before taking a troopship to Africa and describes zig-zagging to avoid submarine attacks. His ship passed Gibraltar and arrived in Oran, but others of his unit went to Morocco and Tunisia. He relates the difficulties of the invasion of Africa with German troops in a fortress on a hill as well as fighting French troops; he describes French ships in the harbor. He was part of a commando group within his company and did reconnaissance work. He was captured once, but escaped. He was captured again in Africa and transported to a forced labor POW camp in Italy. He describes acts of sabotage they performed when they were able, such as removing the filler caps from the barrels of fuel and removing the detonators from the shells they unloaded. He recalls that the Italian people and soldiers helped keep them going. They were then placed aboard a train to Naples and then a boxcar to a German prison camp. He describes the conditions in the camps; they built a series of underground tunnels that allowed them to acquire supplies they needed, including the materials to build a radio. They listened to BBC radio reports about the war. In the Russian compound, Russian POWs grew crops and the American prisoners would trade cigarettes for food.Toward the end of the war, the Germans informed them the camp was being evacuated and any prisoners who could not walk out would be shot. LaPorta's friend was ill with diphtheria, so he built a sled for him and pulled him out until the snow melted, then he walked with his arm around him to support him. Russian soldiers liberated them, and he was transported to Camp Lucky Strike in LeHavre (France) for the trip home on a Liberty ship. He declares that he has no regrets, and that it was all worth it.
Ed LaPorta served in the U.S. Army in Europe and Africa during World War II.
INTERVIEWER: -- tell us where you were born, when and why you entered the military services, and then take us step by step from the date of your enlistment to your boot camp training and then through your first duty station and beyond. Would you begin, please, Mr. LaPorta. ARISTIDE LAPORTA: Sure will. Be glad to. As my interviewer said, my name is Aristide, better known as Ed LaPorta. I was born in Italy in 1917. I grew up and I was educated in Italy. At the age of 15 I had graduated grammar, high school, and I had one year of pre-college. I came to this country at the age of 15, 15 and a half actually. I attended school in Rochester, New York for one year, and I graduated high school within that one year. I learned so much about America. I fell in love with the western portion of the United States, so when I graduated high school I moved to California. I worked there part time because I wanted to explore the places that I learned – read about while going to school in Italy. I took many, many jobs; including driving a truck so I could travel the western states. One day coming from work in front of banks that I passed, post offices, and other buildings they had a big sign in front with an elderly gentleman with whiskers, wearing a striped suit, red and white, and a top hat of blue with stars on it. I immediately knew that was Uncle Sam. It seemed that we looking at me personally with his finger pointing at me saying “I need you” meaning that they need to build an Army because of the problems that were going on in Europe. So I immediately joined the Army in Los Angeles, California, Fort McArthur. From there, after interviewing me, they took blood samples, made dog tags and in the interview they found out that I was a very good mechanic and also I had experience driving heavy vehicles including 18 wheelers. So they shipped to Fort Knox, Kentucky where the first armored division was being formed. There again, they'd learned all my experience with automobiles, trucks, and a good mechanic. They assigned me to a motor pool, and they showed me all the vehicles that they had in the motor pool from a motorcycle to a heavy tank. And I drove each one of those vehicles to get used to them. And they told me that I did so good they kept me in the motor pool teaching other men that come into the military to show them how to drive them, from a motorcycle to a half track, all the trucks that we had, personnel carriers, weapon carriers, and tanks. That was my job. After the basic training we went on maneuvers, Louisiana, Carolina. We returned from maneuvers after about three weeks, we were supposed to get week passes – a furlough actually, two weeks. I figured I'd go visit my folks before we knew that we were going overseas. We had a good idea that that was going to happen. I think I'll go visit my parents. It was Sunday morning, December 7th; we were waiting in our barracks waiting for the company commander to bring the furloughs. We had the radio on and all of a sudden we heard this commotion that was Orson Wells broadcasting the disaster that was going on in Pearl Harbor. And we thought that was one of Orson Wells' brainstorms so we changed the station. Same thing. Every station on radio had the same program then I began to take my dress uniform off and get into my fatigues because I knew that we were not going on furlough, and sure enough about 20 minutes later Company Commander advised us all furloughs are cancelled; you're restricted to Company area. So that's what we did. INTERVIEWER: And how did you feel about that? ARISTIDE LAPORTA: Well, I really wanted to go visit my folks before going overseas but that didn't happen. INTERVIEWER: Did you have any idea you were going overseas or had you received orders? ARISTIDE LAPORTA: Yeah, we had an idea. Because we had learned what was going on in Germany where Hitler was running rampage all over Europe. So sure enough after – INTERVIEWER: So you were very disappointed that – ARISTIDE LAPORTA: I was very disappointed I could not go see my parents. INTERVIEWER: Uh-huh. ARISTIDE LAPORTA: Then they gave us qualifications of our jobs. I was qualified as heavy vehicle driver. My assignment was tank driver. Also, I was licensed by the United States government to drive any vehicle in the United States Army. Whatever they gave me to drive, I drove. About two weeks later, maybe less, went to New Jersey port of embarkation and spent about two weeks there and then overseas. INTERVIEWER: How did you travel to New Jersey? ARISTIDE LAPORTA: By train. INTERVIEWER: By train? ARISTIDE LAPORTA: Yes. INTERVIEWER: So it was a troop train with all military – ARISTIDE LAPORTA: Troop train, was all military. INTERVIEWER: Okay. ARISTIDE LAPORTA: So we got to New Jersey, spent about two weeks there showing us how to get on the boat. [LAUGHTER] You got on the boat – you walk over to the boat. But anyway, you know how the military are. We went through those exercises and it was worthwhile, a lot of things that we did not know, how to get aboard ship, what to do, how to stay out of problems, and all that. And we were shipped out after two weeks and we landed in Belfast, Ireland, but as we left New Jersey – I want to back up a little bit. We saw a glimpse of the Statue of Liberty and I waved, I said “So long sweetheart; I hope I see you soon.” That was a good feeling. Anyway, from Belfast, Ireland they took us to a little town of the name [Unintelligible], Ireland. It was a little fisherman's town that we trained with the British troops. One night we were on guard – this is funny. One night we were on guard, I was driving a jeep and my partner riding in the back of the jeep manning a machine gun, because we heard rumors that Germans were going to drop some paratroopers in that area, so there were a lot of roving patrols with jeeps. So, we were driving down this country road, we heard some ruffling behind the bushes. My gunner says “hey, Ed, stop here a minute, I heard something.” And with the rumors that we had heard that the Germans were going to drop paratroopers we stopped and sure enough there was noise back there. And my machine gunners hollered three times “halt!” “Halt!” “Halt! It stop, all of the sudden started again. And we went through the same thing “halt, halt, who goes there?!” No answer. So I said there's no houses around here just a farm field. I said give a couple of shots with the machine gun at the bushes. And it did bllll [phonetic]. All of the sudden we heard a thud. I said “whoever was there is gone.” We went around the bushes and it was a cow. [LAUGHTER] So the Army paid for the cow to the farmer or whoever owned it, paid him, but we had fresh beef. [LAUGHTER] Anyway, then we were shipped overseas. INTERVIEWER: When you say overseas, what are you speaking of? From Ireland to where? ARISTIDE LAPORTA: From Ireland we went to England. It's a short boat trip, but it took a long time because the ships do not travel a straight line. It would zigzag to get away from the submarines. So it would zigzag and sometimes we would go back and turn around go towards England again. There again we trained with British troops. From there, after about a month or two, got aboard ship again to Gibraltar. From Gibraltar we changed ships, landing crafts to invade Africa. The 1st Armor Division, that was my division, 1st Armor Division, 6th Armored Infantry Regiment manned these landing crafts to Iran. Some ships went to Casablanca, some to Iran, and some to Tangier. My regiment was assigned to Iran. That's where the harbor so we could take the harbor so the big ships could land, bring in more supplies. That was a mess. My Company alone lost 200 men in that invasion. And other Companies had pretty much the same casualties. It was horrible. INTERVIEWER: So the German Army was there waiting for you? ARISTIDE LAPORTA: The German Army was on a fortress above the harbor up on the hill. There were Germans and French – French troops were there fighting with the Germans. INTERVIEWER: That's unusual. ARISTIDE LAPORTA: It is unusual. We didn't expect that but they were there. As a matter of fact they had some French ships patrolling the harbor shooting -- INTERVIEWER: Do you remember what date this was? ARISTIDE LAPORTA: Dates I don't remember. INTERVIEWER: You don't remember the dates? ARISTIDE LAPORTA: I don't remember dates. I used to, but as the years go by you forget dates. Anyway, the 1st Armored Division and other outfits were there, too; we were not alone, finally took the harbor. From there we went to somewhere up in the hills, if there were any, wooded area – there are some woods in the dessert – to replenish the men that we'd lost, and we got a lot of men that have never seen combat that just go overseas. INTERVIEWER: Well, you had never seen combat either have you? ARISTIDE LAPORTA: No. No. Not yet. INTERVIEWER: So when you were landing this was your first experience at being shot at? ARISTIDE LAPORTA: First encounter. INTERVIEWER: How did you feel about that? ARISTIDE LAPORTA: Actually, I didn't have time to feel about anything. You can imagine what mess the harbor was. As a matter of fact, did you see Saving Private Ryan, the movie? INTERVIEWER: Yes, I did. ARISTIDE LAPORTA: That was us in Iran exactly. What's his name, Spillman [phonetic]? INTERVIEWER: Spielberg – Stephen Spielberg. ARISTIDE LAPORTA: Yeah, he did a good job in that movie. Anyway, from then on we were in combat practically every day. We got our heavy equipment, our f-tracks come in, some tanks had come in, so whatever armored vehicles we had that's what we had to fight with. And to begin with the equipment that the Germans had was so much more superior than ours. We had not build up for a full war yet. And we also were fighting experienced troops. I always said that we were fighting the beginning of the war, we'll fighting on the job training. That's what it actually was. But then we got used to the war, got more experienced, we got better equipment, we got brand new tanks. German tanks were great, the tiger tanks, but then when we got our Shermans, our Grants, and other models we were pretty much on the even keel with the Germans. And that's when we began to gain ground. I also belonged to a commando group, besides driving, and the – when I say commando group it was within our own company not the commandos as we know. Whenever they wanted to know something about the Germans, where they were, what they were doing, how much equipment that they had, they would send us, which was just a group of about ten guys, ten men that we would go as close as possible to the German rest area, whatever, and gather information. How much ammunition we saw, what kind of equipment we saw. Well when you go on a mission like that there are only three things that can happen to you. Out of the three there's only one good one, making it back. Otherwise you're going to get captured or get killed. That's it, there is no more. But we did it. Somebody had to do it. There was a good reason why they needed that information. So, I was captured one time. I was only a prisoner of war at that time about, I don't know, eight hours, ten hours, and that night we escaped. It was a make shift camp. It was not a real prison camp, just a field with barbed wire around it. And that night it happened to be raining like you can't believe. Yeah, it does rain in the dessert. And because the guards had no building to stay out of the rain except something like the size of two phone booths, so they were in there staying out of the rain and we saw an opportunity to jump over the fence and took off. We made it back to our outfit about a day, day and a half because we weren't too far from – INTERVIEWER: How many other soldiers were with you in this commando group? ARISTIDE LAPORTA: About seven or ten. INTERVIEWER: And so, there were about ten of you that are trying to get close to this German – ARISTIDE LAPORTA: Yeah, the ones that got captured we were only about five or six. The others were behind us and when they saw that they turned around and went back to bring more information back. Anyway, we continued on doing the same job, either combat or the in the commando special places that we had to go. We were sent to Kasareen [phonetic] Pass on a special assignment. INTERVIEWER: Say that again. ARISTIDE LAPORTA: Kasareen Pass. INTERVIEWER: Pass, okay. ARISTIDE LAPORTA: It was a very tough place to fight in. The Germans were guarding that pass with everything they had, and we were assigned to go to this special assignment to go as close as we could and send back information to our headquarters. INTERVIEWER: Before you get to this particular operation tell me a little bit about life in the camp where you were just before you were captured the first time. ARISTIDE LAPORTA: We actually didn't have any camps. INTERVIEWER: What were living – how were your living conditions? ARISTIDE LAPORTA: You live on the field, rest areas, mostly trees. INTERVIEWER: Did you sleep in tents, foxholes, or – ARISTIDE LAPORTA: You'd sleep outside if it didn't rain, sleep outside. I was sleeping in the tank or half track, whatever I happened to be driving that day. Food was just in cans, C-rations mostly. That's bean with little hotdogs in, and that's it until – if they were cold we would reheat them, punch a couple of holes on top of the tank put them in the engine compartment and the heat from the engine would warm up – at least warm them up a little bit, and that's what we lived on. Once in a while a kitchen truck would catch up with us and we were able to get a decent hot meal. Otherwise, we'd just live off C-rations. INTERVIEWER: So it was strictly field conditions, huh? ARISTIDE LAPORTA: Field conditions. Yeah. INTERVIEWER: Okay. Then go ahead, please. ARISTIDE LAPORTA: All right. We went to this assignment and the vehicle I was in – I was driving with the gunners. You don't have any heavy equipment because you're not supposed to fight when you go on an assignment like that. You're just to observe and send back information. Anyway, on that particular one we were captured. We were completely surrounded. The vehicle I was driving was a personnel carrier, it was completely surrounded. There was no way to get away, no way in the world. We got captured. INTERVIEWER: And this was by the Germans? ARISTIDE LAPORTA: By the Germans. INTERVIEWER: Okay. ARISTIDE LAPORTA: And we were taken to a real prison camp, staging area, where to walk and walked all night. We finally got there and saw some other prisoners – American prisoners. The next morning they separated us, this group that I was in. I never saw them again. And they took me to a room a little smaller than this with a little table, three chairs, and there was a German officer who spoke English and two, I call them goons – two German soldiers, one on each side of me. At times they would hold me down and the officer started asking questions. What outfit you're in, I'd say “my name is Aristide LaPorta”, give them my name, rank, and serial number. And they kept asking the questions, they said you're not answering my question. I said “yes, I did; I gave you my name, my rank, and serial number.” He says you know -- I says “you speak fairly good English.” He said, “Yeah, I used to work in Chicago.” I said so “when the fatherland called you, you went and fight against us while you're money in the United States.” He didn't like that answer. Anyway, he says “you know, we have ways to make you talk.” I says “there's a war on, do what you have to do.” I said “Geneva Convention says that all I have to tell you is my name, rank, and serial number.” So he asked me another question I gave him another wise answer and he smacked me. I said well, I'm in for it. I said “sir, you can do whatever you want to do. I gave you my name, my rank, and serial number, and that's all you're going to get out of me, period.” “You do whatever you have to do with me, but I'm not going to jeopardize the rest of the troops by giving you what outfit I'm in, where I came from, what vehicle I drove if any.” I said name, rank, and serial number. This went on for about two hours. My face was swollen and I was bleeding from the gums. I lost two or three molars back here. INTERVIEWER: Did he strike you more than once? ARISTIDE LAPORTA: One after the other. He finally gave up. He finally gave up, thank God. I think there was an angel on my shoulder. Finally gave up and the next day – me and six other guys – six or eight, something like that, they put us on a plane – a small plane, and then flew us over the Mediterranean into Sicily, and when we got on the plane and I saw the water underneath I says “hang on to something, guys”, because it had been know that the floor of those planes would open up and they'd dump you in the drink. Anyway, they didn't do that. We landed in Sicily; from Sicily they put us on a barge into Reggio, the city of Reggio in Italy. And there they had a makeshift camp. There were no buildings, just tents, four people to a tent, and there were about, I would say about 125 all together. When we got there there were prisoners there already under the Germans and it was a slave labor camp, and they had us working on ammunition. Not making ammunition, but unload it from the trucks and stack it up on the hills. INTERVIEWER: When you say a slave labor camp what do you mean by that? ARISTIDE LAPORTA: Hardly any food – INTERVIEWER: Well, they took the prisoners – ARISTIDE LAPORTA: Yeah. INTERVIEWER: -- and worked them as slaves. ARISTIDE LAPORTA: Right. INTERVIEWER: I see. Okay. ARISTIDE LAPORTA: So, food was almost unknown. Get up before day light and come back after dark, and as I said before, they had us working stacking ammunition, unload the trucks, stack the ammunition, and also aircraft fuel unloaded from the trucks, like the 55 gallon drums that we have. I don't know how many liters there were, but those drums and they'd put them in pits and stack them like that. That was a good job. We loved that job because we'd create some disturbance so that guards would look the other way, unscrew the nose end of the shells – artillery shells, take the detonators out and screw the cap back on. No detonation, no explosion. And we did – I don't know how many per day, whenever we'd get a chance. We couldn't do them all because we were pretty well guarded, but we had the chance to disarm some of those shells. There's a war on, we were not supposed to be there. They were mistreating us by letting us work in those – with the artillery shells and gasoline. As a matter of fact, I told one of the guards – he was the chief of the guards we're not supposed to do this; it's strictly against Geneva Convention. His answer was we don't care about the Geneva Convention. This is war. Well, it's war for you, it's war for us, too. So every chance we got disarm the artillery shells. INTERVIEWER: So you're sabotaging the German ammunition as your act of war against – ARISTIDE LAPORTA: Yeah, fighting the war from the prison camp. We used to do the same thing with gasoline drums. We got a hold of a wrench that they used to tighten these – the filler caps. I guess the guard forgot it; we found it on the field. I guess the guards didn't pick them all up, and we hid the thing so we could have it whenever we need it and loosen the filler caps a little bit and put those drums on the bottom stack and the fuel would drip out of there. And this hill that we stacked the ammunition on and the gasoline drums, the ground was sandy, very, very sandy, because it was right next to the Straits of Messina and it was sandy ground for quite a few feet from the Straits itself, so that was to our advantage because the sand would absorb the fuel from the barrels that would drip out. You could smell gas but nobody thought anything about it because there was gas in there. So we did that for – we were there for six months. INTERVIEWER: And you were never detected doing that? ARISTIDE LAPORTA: No. INTERVIEWER: [LAUGHTER] ARISTIDE LAPORTA: Never detected. We worked carefully. The food, hardly any, but thank God for the good Italian people and the good Italian soldiers that kept us going. The soldiers were not allowed near the camp but the civilians, they would let them come in across the camp and inspect their every piece of bread or whatever they brought us. They would look at it, make sure there was nothing inside, but we ate. INTERVIEWER: So this was a German concentration camp or Italian? ARISTIDE LAPORTA: German concentration camp. INTERVIEWER: In Italy? ARISTIDE LAPORTA: Yeah. A lot of people ask me how come the Italian soldiers brought you food. There's a lot of things that people don't realize. During that war Italy was under two governments, Mussolini and the King. The King's army are the ones that did not fight against the Americans but the fascists, they were fighting against us. But the King's army – INTERVIEWER: So these soldiers were from the King's army? ARISTIDE LAPORTA: Yeah, right. INTERVIEWER: They're the ones who brought you food? ARISTIDE LAPORTA: Right. As a matter of fact, some were forced to go to Africa and fight against the Americans but they wouldn't fight. I interviewed some that we'd capture. They'd say “heck, this is not our war; we're no longer a part of it.” And they'd volunteer to be captured. INTERVIEWER: When was this; this capture of the Italian soldiers? ARISTIDE LAPORTA: It was around '42. INTERVIEWER: Was that prior to you being taken? ARISTIDE LAPORTA: Captured, yeah. INTERVIEWER: Okay, prisoner of war. ARISTIDE LAPORTA: Yeah, they said this is not our war. INTERVIEWER: So, these Italians that you captured were in Africa at the time? ARISTIDE LAPORTA: Yeah, the probably were forced. INTERVIEWER: Okay. ARISTIDE LAPORTA: But as I said, they get on the battlefield, that's it; take me to prison. INTERVIEWER: Other than not having very much food, how were the conditions otherwise? ARISTIDE LAPORTA: Slept on a ground, and like I said, there were pop tents, four men to a tent, two on each side, and they had some straw to begin with, but after you walk on it and lay on it for a while there is no more straw. You'd sleep right on the ground. At night it would get pretty cold, had no blankets, nothing. Nothing at all to keep you warm. But we survived. INTERVIEWER: How did you keep your morale up? ARISTIDE LAPORTA: How did we keep our morale up? We're Americans. There's no way they're going to take our pride away from us. Some guys would lose it. We'd take them under our wing and have a good talk with them. You're an American; you can't do that. You're not allowed to do that. You're not allowed to feel bad for yourself. You're American. We're going to make it home. You know, give him a pep talk. You'd be surprised how many would listen, follow us. So after it was over there in slave labor camp we got on the train, box cars on our way to Germany. INTERVIEWER: The German soldiers put you on the trains? ARISTIDE LAPORTA: Yeah. INTERVIEWER: Okay. ARISTIDE LAPORTA: And this was in the city of Reggio when the train pulled in. They took us away from the camp and marched us to the train station, loaded on box cars with no passenger cars any where, just box cars. They'd load you in like a group of cattle or sheep and we went from there to the city of Naples. They took us to the city of Naples. There we ate pretty good because the camp was run by the Italian military and they fed us pretty good. Like I said, the Italians had not qualms with the United States. They fed us pretty good there. And if some were wounded and you know, not feeling good they would put them in a – I would say a hospital, but at least they had a bed, and they'd bring them food right to their bed. INTERVIEWER: How did you, being born in Italy, feel about being back in Italy under these conditions? ARISTIDE LAPORTA: Well I had not mixed emotions, no. None at all. INTERVIEWER: So you did not identify with the Italians at all? ARISTIDE LAPORTA: Well, I talked to them. Like when we were in this camp in Naples, all Italian personnel there, I talked to them. INTERVIEWER: Did you speak Italian? ARISTIDE LAPORTA: Yeah. INTERVIEWER: Okay. ARISTIDE LAPORTA: Yeah. So we stayed there about a month. We sort of recuperated a little bit because they fed us pretty good. Then back on box cars to Germany, star lock 3B and Furstenberg. There we found the camp was not in very good condition. A group of us, we were led by a Sergeant – how much time do we have? INTERVIEWER: Keep going, plenty of time. ARISTIDE LAPORTA: We were led by this Sergeant. I'll never forget his name, Sergeant Day [phonetic]. We formed a group. We're going to perk up this camp. Got meetings and within the barracks, we had guards outside, not German guards, our own guards, made sure there were no Germans listening in. We had meetings. One of the meetings was that when we have visitors from Geneva tell them what the problems are in this camp. And before they would come the Germans would come into us and say “no complaints; anybody that complains to the Geneva delegates you'll be punished.” Okay. So when the Geneva delegates come in, one of the first things they would ask “how are you treated?” Rotten! No food, hardly any, in the winter time we freeze it's so cold, no heat, they don't put any glass on the windows that are broken, snow comes in. And the delegate would say “I see a blanket over hear, it looks like brand new.” Yeah, that's right. Come in tomorrow and see if you see it again. They would take them away. So then we get punished. Like four or five days, what they call, put you in the cooler, and you'd be there in a little square room like that, spent there. If you didn't have good stamina, good mind, a solid mind you would go bananas. INTERVIEWER: So they put you in solitary? ARISTIDE LAPORTA: Solitary, they called the cooler, put you in the cooler. Next time you won't complain. And I'd say don't count on it. Then we started building underground tunnels. We had one tunnel that was a good one. It went, I don't know how many feet, but right outside the camp. INTERVIEWER: This was for purposes of escape? ARISTIDE LAPORTA: Escape, and there's more than that, just escape. We used to meet with the underground. We used to get some food. We were able to buy some food, exchange for cigarettes. That's one thing you had plenty of. We were billionaires in cigarettes and we had quite a bit of soap. INTERVIEWER: How did you get the cigarettes? ARISTIDE LAPORTA: Cigarettes would come like form The Red Cross, from American Legend, other organizations that would send – INTERVIEWER: How did you make contact with the underground? ARISTIDE LAPORTA: In the woods. We get out of the camp – INTERVIEWER: You could get out of the camp? ARISTIDE LAPORTA: Get out of the camp either through the tunnel or over the fence. Take a chance, yeah. Take a big chance. INTERVIEWER: Why would you come back? ARISTIDE LAPORTA: To take care of the camp. Everybody didn't do the job that we were doing and the underground would not take you out. INTERVIEWER: Oh, so in other words, once you escaped you didn't keep going you came back to the prison camp. ARISTIDE LAPORTA: Come back, yeah. Come back with items. INTERVIEWER: Oh, I see. ARISTIDE LAPORTA: Items from food or whatever we needed. And also, besides the tunnel – it took us quite a while to dig – we build a room I would say about this square, and there we had – we finally were able to get an American flag. We had some hand grenades from the underground. We had a couple revolvers. And the main thing that we built – I say we, this group built a radio receiver. We got the parts from the underground for cigarettes, soap. And the radio worked beautifully. We used to get the BBC news three times a day. INTERVIEWER: And the Germans permitted you to do this? ARISTIDE LAPORTA: No. INTERVIEWER: They didn't know it? ARISTIDE LAPORTA: They didn't know. No, [unintelligible] Germans have you a radio? No way. [LAUGHTER] No, we built that – a fellow that worked there [unintelligible] radio station. We called him the engineer, but he was a repair man on one of the radio stations in civilian life and he knew all about how to build one. He used to repair all kinds of equipment. So by getting the parts, whatever we needed. We'd give the guy maybe he wanted 10 packs of cigarettes or two packs of cigarettes to bring whatever we needed. He built that radio. INTERVIEWER: So you were pretty ingenious there, huh? ARISTIDE LAPORTA: Well you get a bunch of GIs together you find every walk of life. INTERVIEWER: Well you brought an invention with you. How does that fit into this story here? ARISTIDE LAPORTA: This here – besides meeting with the underground, we used to go to the Russian compound and the Russians used to work in farms and they used whatever they could sneak in like potatoes or carrots or whatever they could bring in, we buy it from them for cigarettes. That way [unintelligible] no way to cook it. There were no stoves in the compound. There was nothing to heat anything or cook anything, so I came up with this invention. A cooking stove. I'll explain it to you. This here is where we build the fire, this pot here is where we would build the fire and then we'd set a pot on top of it to cook, but whatever we could get to build a fire on it would not burn very well. The fire would not come up strong enough to boil water and cook the potatoes or carrots or whatever we got. So I came up with this idea. This here, as I mentioned before, is the fire pot. This here is a wind tunnel. This here is like an enclosure for a fan. This here – there's four [unintelligible] in here so when it turns it shoots the wind through the wind tunnel and comes up through here and puts pressure and the fire would come out strongly. And to make this wheel turn fast enough – this wheel to turn fast enough, being a good mechanic this actually is like an Oldsmobile transmission. When you turn this wheel it drives this smaller wheel, which multiplies the speed of this. INTERVIEWER: Oh yes. ARISTIDE LAPORTA: And this multiplies the speed of this. So when you turn this, let's say an eighth of a turn this might make two revolutions. INTERVIEWER: So that would turn the fan – ARISTIDE LAPORTA: See how slow I'm turning the big wheel? INTERVIEWER: Yes. ARISTIDE LAPORTA: You see how fast the little wheel is going? INTERVIEWER: Oh yes. ARISTIDE LAPORTA: So this here is like an automobile transmission. This is the first speed, this is the second speed, and this is the third speed. INTERVIEWER: So the fan would turn and then – ARISTIDE LAPORTA: The fan would turn here – you see, there's the axle of the fan. You can see the axle right here that goes right to the can and drives the fan inside to speed to create a lot of wind through the wind tunnel and will come up through the holes over here and kept the fire burning real hot. INTERVIEWER: Well now, that is really something. That's very ingenious. You would use that to cook your food? ARISTIDE LAPORTA: Yeah. This is not the original. I built this at my home. I've made quite a few of these. They're in various places. INTERVIEWER: Where is the original? ARISTIDE LAPORTA: Well, like I said before, the Germans had no sense of humor. They took it. INTERVIEWER: They took it, okay. ARISTIDE LAPORTA: So that's how we did that. And we kept the camp going. Then the Russians were getting pretty close – the Americans I should say, were getting pretty close to that camp so the Germans decided to move us out of that camp. From 3B we went to 2B. INTERVIEWER: Okay, you have about eight minutes. ARISTIDE LAPORTA: Eight minutes, okay. I'm going to go through this fast. They decided to move us. My friend – we used to work in pairs all the time, not alone, in the camp. My partner was a fellow by the name of Lefty Garringtor [phonetic]. He took sick a couple of times and when they moved us it was what they called a hospital, which was not a hospital, broken down shack away from the camp, no doctors, no nurses, no medics, no medications, nothing, and he got diphtheria. He was there about four days. I used to sneak out of the camp every night, bring him whatever I could gather for food, keep him a little strong. So one day the German officer come in, who also spoke English, says that tonight at nine o'clock sharp we're evacuating the entire camp. We're going to another camp, which is 85 miles away. You're going to do that all on foot; we have no transportation for you. Whoever cannot make it will be shot wherever he falls no matter what he'll be shot. We have no way to transport them. So immediately I said “what are you going to do with Robert Garringtor?” He says “He can't even stand let alone walk; he'll be shot a hundred yards from here.” I said “Why don't you bring him here. Let me worry about him.” So he did. Of course, he looked terrible, couldn't walk, couldn't stand. I got the bright idea to build a sled. It was snowing outside. It was during the winter, bitter cold. I built that sled. We had a hammer and nails. The wood I got it from the wooden [unintelligible]. We had a saw where I could sort of run off the front of the sled. I put a seat on it, neck rest, a foot rest. I tied him to the sled. At nine o'clock sharp the Germans with guards, machine guns, and everything, took us out. I pulled that sled from nine o'clock that night until six o'clock in the morning. I didn't get any help from anybody. Then snow was beginning to melt, I couldn't pull the sled any more. I took him off the sled, put his arm around my shoulder, I grabbed him by the belt, almost to lift him off the ground and walked him for 85 miles. I carried him for 85 miles. It's in this manual over here that I'm going to donate to the museum here. This here, I was telling you about the camera that this man Spanalli [phonetic] had. He took about 1200 photos and they're all in this album over here. And they are – the actual films are on display in the museum in Andersonville. I'm going to donate this to the museum. This here, the telegram that my parents got when I was captured. The only thing that this has in missing in action. This here is a service Prisoners of War metal. I'm most proud of it. This metal has an inscription on back. It has my name and in the back says “for outstanding service while a POW.” INTERVIEWER: You must be proud of that. ARISTIDE LAPORTA: I am so proud of this metal. INTERVIEWER: And the other sheet that you had – ARISTIDE LAPORTA: This here is how I carried that man for 85 miles. INTERVIEWER: Oh, that's just the description of – ARISTIDE LAPORTA: Yeah. It's all in there. I'm also donating it to – INTERVIEWER: That's an account of what happened? ARISTIDE LAPORTA: Yeah. INTERVIEWER: Okay. And you're donating that also. ARISTIDE LAPORTA: I'm donating this to the museum also. INTERVIEWER: Well, how were you rescued from the camp? ARISTIDE LAPORTA: Russians. INTERVIEWER: Oh, so the Russians came and liberated you? ARISTIDE LAPORTA: The Russians liberated us. They wanted to take us to Russia. INTERVIEWER: I noticed that you had the Purple Heart. How did you get the Purple Heart? ARISTIDE LAPORTA: I was wounded in battle three times. INTERVIEWER: Oh, that was prior to being captured. ARISTIDE LAPORTA: Yeah. INTERVIEWER: I see. Okay. So then how did your family learn that you had been liberated? ARISTIDE LAPORTA: In the prison camp in star lock 3B, The Red Cross, through the Geneva delegates, they brought a man in – almost like you, didn't have a camera like this because they didn't exist then, but he had a recorder and they interviewed each and every prisoner within that camp and then was broadcasted in the United States. INTERVIEWER: So that's how they found out. ARISTIDE LAPORTA: One of our neighbors heard me speaking in that recorder and he ran right next door and told my parents. INTERVIEWER: We have only a few minutes left. ARISTIDE LAPORTA: All right. INTERVIEWER: Tell us how you got from Europe back to the United States. ARISTIDE LAPORTA: Liberty Ship. INTERVIEWER: So you were liberated by the Russians. ARISTIDE LAPORTA: Yeah. INTERVIEWER: Then they turned you over to the American authorities. ARISTIDE LAPORTA: To the American authorities. We were with them – they took us to Camp Lucky Strike in the LeHavre French and there was a staging area that kept us there about – at least two weeks that sort of built us up a little bit. But I want to close this up – we just have a few seconds left – that it was all worthwhile, all worthwhile. I have no regrets whatsoever. My suffering that I did in the prison camp, the chances we took was all worthwhile. As Tom Brokaw put it, the greatest generation, that we saved the world from total dictatorship. And I can't say enough to the younger generation, that if you want freedom you fight for it. We have a slogan in our camp – not in our camp – in my club. INTERVIEWER: The World War II – ARISTIDE LAPORTA: Yeah. I was trying to think of another. World War II Roundtable Club. We have a slogan that says that freedom has never been, freedom is not, freedom will never be free; you have to fight for it. You want to enjoy the American way of living and somebody tries to take it away from you, fight for it. Don't hesitate. This is your country, this is your nation. Love it, fight for it if you must, and you can enjoy the freedom, and your kids, your grand kids, and the future generations to come can enjoy the freedom that we're enjoying today. So, don't hesitate. INTERVIEWER: Well, thank you very much, Mr. LaPorta. I am sure that anyone who views this in the future will get a great deal of inspiration from it. We certainly appreciate you sharing your experiences with us. ARISTIDE LAPORTA: My pleasure. INTERVIEWER: Thanks a lot. ARISTIDE LAPORTA: I thank you. [END INTERVIEW] [KS]
Metadata URL:: http://album.atlantahistorycenter.com/cdm/ref/collection/VHPohr/id/239
Additional Rights Information:: This material is protected by copyright law. (Title 17, U.S. Code) Permission for use must be cleared through the Kenan Research Center at the Atlanta History Center. Licensing agreement may be required.
Extent:: 1:00:03
Original Collection:: Veterans History Project oral history recordings
Veterans History Project collection, MSS 1010, Kenan Research Center, Atlanta History Center
Holding Institution:: Atlanta History Center
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